from the I-get-200-kbps-when-it-rains dept

For much of the last decade we've noted that Verizon received billions in tax breaks and subsidies for fiber optic networks that were only partially deployed. From New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from New York City to Philadelphia, newswires the last few years have been filled with complaints from consumers and governments who say the company didn't finish the job it was handsomely paid to complete, leaving a patchwork of spotty next-gen broadband availability, and entire cities filled with customers still paying an arm and a leg for circa 2002 DSL speeds.

And the problem isn't just that Verizon didn't upgrade its networks, it's that the company has been neglecting the aging DSL network equipment already in place. In 2015, for example, frustrated Verizon union employees submitted a complaint to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission highlighting just what Verizon's network hardware currently looks like in many parts of a state that was supposed to have been upgraded to fiber years ago:

The same can be said for a wide variety of instances where Verizon couldn't really be bothered to work particularly hard at utility pole repair:

Given Verizon's political stranglehold over federal and local regulators and legislators, efforts to hold the company accountable on this front have been decidedly mixed. The company has often added insult to injury by insisting these complaints are either "pure nonsense," or at times by trying to claim that people who would like their phone and DSL lines to be upgraded (or hey, to simply work) are just being archaic Luddites because they refuse to sign up for significantly more expensive wireless service that in many areas may not be available anyway:

"This is a classic example of how some people fear new technology so they reactively reject it instead of accepting it, no matter how irrational that fear may be," Gierczynski said. Verizon opponents believe it plans to offer non-FiOS neighborhoods what they said is inferior wireless or Voice Link services once the firm's aging, deteriorating copper wire lines stop working altogether.

"I think people are going to look back and laugh (at copper landline proponents) ... just like (those) who were part of the Anti-Digit Dialing League," he added, referring to people who resisted the seven-digit phone numbers that began in the late 1950s.

Yes, hilarious. The goal for both AT&T and Verizon over the last few years has been to effectively let these unwanted DSL customers rot on the vine, until company lobbyists can convince state regulators to purge regulations requiring they continue to serve these users, many of which are elderly. This has been done (as evident above) by suggesting that killing off fixed-line DSL networks and shoving these users to wireless is all part of a miraculous "IP transition" that will deliver untold, amazing technological advancements to local communities.

Complications arise from the fact that wireless (especially in rural areas) isn't yet a viable alternative to fixed lines. Many of these lines were also taxpayer subsidized, and are still very much in use. Not to mention the fact that Verizon took billions more from these communities to deliver fiber upgrades never delivered. That said, there has been some modest traction in recent weeks after Verizon was forced by Pennsylvania regulators to at least repair some of the worst parts of its neglected network:

"The telecom giant will repair the worst of its legacy copper network in areas without FiOS and replace 15,000 unsightly and dangerous “double poles” on Pennsylvania roadsides, according to the deal between the company and the company’s Pennsylvania unionized workers who are part of the Communications Workers of America."

The agreement falls well short of requiring Verizon to admit fault of any kind, or forcing Verizon to upgrade these networks to fiber as per a 1993 agreement with the state --
that critics say was supposed to result in uniform fiber coverage statewide. But Verizon has also been forced to strike a similar deal by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, who found that, again, Verizon neglected its fixed-line networks to an almost comical degree. It won't, however, be forced to upgrade the state to fiber:

"But the telecom giant won’t be wiring a wide swath of Cumberland, Burlington, Salem, and Atlantic Counties with the high-speed Fios service that has been extended to millions of residents in other parts of New Jersey, according to a settlement among state officials, Verizon, and 17 towns that complained about substandard phone service. Fios is Verizon’s branded service for internet, television, and voice services, delivered over fiber lines.

In late 2015, the 17 towns, mostly in Cumberland County, complained to the state Board of Public Utilities about downed phones and bad or no internet. Service has been particularly unreliable on rainy or damp days, which result in buzzing water-soaked copper phone lines because of their age and rundown condition, local residents and officials say."

These are important wins, but in full context they're a drop in the bucket. Time, and time, and time again communities have tried to hold the telco accountable for taking taxpayer funds, then failing to upgrade essential infrastructure. Verizon's attentions meanwhile are elsewhere. The company recently acquired AOL and Yahoo in the hope of pivoting from neglecting running fixed-line networks to becoming a major media and advertising competitor to Google and Facebook (success on that front has been decidedly mixed).

It's abundantly clear that Verizon executives are done with these communities, but these communities also have made it abundantly clear (as New York City's recent lawsuit against the telco will attest) -- they're not quite yet done with Verizon.

from the wink-wink-nudge-nudge dept

AT&T has spent the last few months fending off critics of its planned $100 million acquisition of Time Warner. Most critics say the company's ownership of Time Warner will make it harder for streaming competitors to license the content they need to compete. Others warn that AT&T's decision to zero rate (cap exempt) its own content gives the company's new DirecTV Now streaming TV service an unfair advantage in the market. That's before you get to the fundamental fact that letting a company with the endless ethical issues AT&T enjoys get significantly larger likely only benefits AT&T.

Responding to these criticisms, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson spent the last few months repeatedly insisting that critics have it wrong, because the merger was allowing the company to introduce a new streaming video service that provides 100 channels of TV for just $35 per month:

"I'm not surprised [by the criticism]. They're uninformed comments," Stephenson said in response to a question from Wall Street Journal editor Rebecca Blumenstein at the newspaper's WSJDLive Conference. "Anybody who characterizes this as a means to raise prices is ignoring the basic premise of what we're trying to do here, again a $35 product we bring into the market."

That $35 price point was used again and again by AT&T lobbyists and executives in selling the deal before Congress, the company insisting that only this new mega-merger could possibly make this kind of offer possible. Stephenson at several points proclaimed that the lower-cost option was "a way to drive pricing down in the marketplace," -- a surefire example of AT&T's dedication to intense video competition.

It's ironic then that the company is already backtracking and raising rates on its new streaming TV service.

As it turns out, that $35 for 100 channel offer was only a limited-time promotion. AT&T has already jacked the price of the service up to $60 per month as of January 9, and the company is already indicating that pricing for all of its streaming TV service tiers (despite now owning Time Warner content) will be going up sometime in the near future:

"After Jan. 9, new subscribers who sign up for DirecTV Now’s Go Big tier with after Jan. 9 will pay $60 per month. Existing subs will continue to pay the $35-per-month rate for now, but the company also said the fees may increase at some future date. In addition, “channels, features, and terms (are) subject to change & may be discontinued without notice,” AT&T said in a notice on the DirecTV Now website."

And this comes as the outgoing FCC is clearly warning that AT&T is using usage caps to give this new content an unfair advantage over streaming alternatives. So while AT&T is busy claiming the Time Warner Merger will help it disrupt and compete with traditional cable, it's clear AT&T executives are more interested in building cable 2.0: the same old anti-competitive shenanigans and TV price hikes we all know and love, just with a shiny new layer of public relations paint. AT&T has a long history of bogus promises to get big deals approved, but it's rare to see the company already falling short on its promises before the ink is even dry.

from the 360-degrees dept

Readers of this site should know by now that, as a general rule, DRM is equal parts dumb and ineffective. What in theory is a way for game publishers to stave off piracy typically instead amounts to a grand digital method for making sure legitimate customers can't play the games they buy. Now, not all DRM is created equally shitty, of course -- one of the more benign forms of DRM is Valve's Steam platform. Because games purchased on the platform check in with Steam servers for product keys and otherwise encrypts the individual files for the game each user downloads, it's a form of DRM.

And because DRM is almost always annoying even at its best, there are some gamers who will only buy DRM-free games. Many Kickstarter campaigns for video games, in fact, explicitly state that backers and non-backers will have a DRM-free option for the game available, either through platforms like GOG and HumbleBundle, or directly from the developer. Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler! was one such game, with developer Venture Moon Industries promising both a Steam release and a DRM-free release when it collected funds from backers. Then, suddenly, once the company got a publisher on board for the project, it announced that the game would only be available on Steam.

During the campaign, DRM-free copies of Duke Grabowski were promised to backers. Of course, most people expected this promise to be honored. As of yesterday, the publisher the developers have lined up told them this no longer is the case. The whole DRM-free thing has been thrown out the proverbial window and only Steam keys are being offered. Understandably, the comments section on Kickstarter is in an uproar.

The reaction has been almost universally negative, with nearly every commentor speaking out against the decision. Several backers are demanding a refund because they only backed it because DRM-free was promised. Instead of getting militant, a few backers have decided it best to petition the publisher to honor the original promises. One has even written up a template to send toDukeGrabowski@gmail.com.

Well, yes, the reaction from those who have paid for a product, even if it's a pre-payment in the form of a Kickstarter pledge, will tend to be negative when promised iterations of the game are suddenly yanked away without warning or recourse. Everyone seems to agree that publisher Alliance Digital Media was the one behind the decision, but to the end customer that makes little difference. If a developer promises a DRM-free version of its game to backers, then that developer had damned well better make sure the publisher they select is on board with that as well. Otherwise, it was a promise made without the commitment to keeping it.

Good news! Alliance has told me that they are planning on releasing a DRM-free version of the game before the end of the year, and that more details will be coming soon. So thank you for your patience and understanding.

Which is, you know, fine, but with Kickstarter becoming a major vehicle for funding the creation of new gaming content, this kind of thing needs to get ironed out now. Because backers aren't going to keep backing without some level of trust that promises made to slurp their money from them will be kept, preferably without them having to light the torches and dig up their pitchforks.

from the fool-me-twice dept

We've noted for years now how Verizon's modus operandi is to promise uniform fiber deployment to a city or state in exchange for all manner of subsidies and tax breaks, then walk away giggling to itself with the job only partially complete. This story has played out time and time again thanks to city and state contracts struck behind closed doors without public transparency, allowing Verizon to bury numerous loopholes in the contract language. Other times, Verizon can lobby to weaken oversight so that there's simply nobody left to hold Verizon accountable when it decides to laugh off the contract requirements.

In 2008, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg struck a closed-door deal with Verizon delivering all manner of tax breaks and incentives in exchange for what the city thought would be 100% deployment of Verizon's FiOS fiber optic service by 2014. Fast forward to last year, when the new city administration realized that Verizon had absolutely no intention of seriously deploying fiber uniformly across the city. This week, the city released the results of a survey it conducted that found that fiber is unsurprisingly still hard to come by:

"The city recently sampled 52,000 addresses for Fios availability, and found that outer boroughs were more likely to have access than Manhattan. For instance, 90% of Staten Island residents could likely get Fios within seven days, while the same is true for just 19% of people in central Brooklyn and 11% in upper Manhattan. About two-thirds of the more than 300 public-housing developments, which are home to more than 400,000 people, have no access to Fios, the city says.

Meanwhile, a letter from the city to the telco (pdf) complains that Verizon is in violation of at least three parts of the original agreement, failed repeatedly to deliver documentation requested during an audit of Verizon's progress, and cites at least 38,551 addresses where Verizon failed to deliver service despite order requests that are more than a year old.

Verizon, as it is wont to do, tries to spin the narrative on its head by claiming that New York City is being "adversarial":

"It is unfortunate and disappointing that the City is taking an adversarial approach to the only company that has challenged New York City’s cable monopolies,” Mr. McConville said. "The City should be working with Verizon to make choice available to more residents, not discouraging competition.”

Except Cities have every right to be adversarial with a company that has shown repeatedly that it doesn't deliver on its promises. Verizon has tried to claim that grumpy landlords are to blame for its failure to deliver FiOS evenly across the city. And while landlords can play a role in delaying some installations, reporters have subsequently discovered that the excuse just doesn't hold water and Verizon's simply not doing the work.

While it was a contract signed under a previous administration, New York City isn't blameless. Reporters at the time pointed out that the city's contract had ample loopholes and should have been negotiated in the full light of public transparency, but nobody listened. So while New York City says it's mulling a lawsuit against Verizon, that suit may run repeatedly into contract caveats carefully crafted by a company that never had any intention of uniform fiber deployment. The contract reflected this had anybody actually bothered to read it.

The amusing (or annoying) thing is that cities keep making the same deals with the proverbial devil over and over again. Philadelphia recently complained that Verizon failed to meet its obligations there as well. And While Verizon's overall FiOS deployment has been frozen, the city just struck a similar deal with Boston -- with few if any in the press bothering to note the tail of frustration and broken promises trailing miles behind the telco and its lawyers.

from the fool-me-sixteen-times,-shame-on-me dept

We've long discussed how Verizon has a bit of a pattern of getting billions in tax breaks and subsidies in exchange for fiber broadband it only half deploys. State after state, city after city, Verizon gets politicians to sign off on cozy deals that effectively give Verizon everything it wants -- in exchange for promises of "full" city or state fiber broadband deployment. Except time, and time, and time again, cities that signed these sweetheart, loophole filled deals then stand around with a dopey look on their face when they realize they've been had.

"Mayor Martin J. Walsh today announced a new partnership with Verizon to make Boston one of the most technologically advanced cities in the country by replacing its copper-based infrastructure with a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network platform across the city. The new network will offer enormous bandwidth and speeds. Through an investment of more than $300 million from Verizon over six years, this change will bring increased competition and choice for broadband and entertainment services in Boston, and support the ongoing efforts to spur innovation and economic opportunity in all neighborhoods."

This announcement was quickly translated by the press as "FiOS is coming to the entire city," though if you look more carefully at the language it becomes clear that Verizon isn't actually promising that:

"This will be a fiber platform across the entire city,” Verizon Wireline Network president Bob Mudge said at an event at the Bolling municipal building in Dudley Square Tuesday. “This is not just about a fiber investment — that’s important, and it’s a fuel. But the fire and the excitement will come from the applications.”

If you study the release it's actually pretty ambiguous as to what Boston gets out of the deal. What's actually happening? Verizon struck a $300 million deal with the city that will deliver a combination of fiber, wireless service, fiber backhaul for wireless towers, and Verizon's internet of things technologies. Much of this is stuff Verizon already planned to spend money on (especially wireless backhaul), and a sizable chunk of it (especially on the IOT front) may or may not actually wind up actually benefiting anybody, as the mindlessly over-hyped IOT is wont to do.

How much actual last mile fiber is left utterly ambiguous. Learning lessons from failures of the past, Verizon isn't getting specific, though speaking on an earnings call this week Verizon made it pretty clear most of these connections will be fifth generation (5G) wireless:

"I think of 5G initially as, in effect, wireless fiber, which is wireless technology that can provide an enhanced broadband experience that could only previously be delivered with physical fiber to the customer," McAdam said. "With wireless fiber, the so-called last mile can be a virtual connection, dramatically changing our cost structure."

And while 5G wireless should be faster with lower latency than existing 4G connections, it's not truly going to be a substitute for traditional fiber. The 5G standard itself hasn't even been agreed upon yet, and most analysts don't believe 5G will see serious deployment any time before 2020. There's also a matter of cost: while Verizon FiOS is uncapped, Verizon Wireless service is capped, metered, and among the most expensive in the country, and 5G will be no exception. It's a $300 million investment, yes, but what it's being invested into isn't really clear.

"We will create a single fiber optic platform that is capable of supporting wireless and wireline technologies and multiple products," McAdam said. "In particular, we believe the fiber deployment will create economic growth for Boston and we are talking to other cities about similar partnerships."

Most reporters covering Verizon's plans can't be bothered to note Verizon's long history of not delivering what it promises, or the multiple hearings ongoing in several different states trying to hold Verizon accountable for that fact. Fast forward several years from now, and you'll likely find Boston (and any other cities excited to "partner" with Verizon without reading the fine print) complaining that Verizon delivered only a small fraction of what was actually promised. You'll also find a media incapable of tying all of these narrative threads together.

Still, on a positive note it's great to see Verizon spending anything at all on cities it has been neglecting for the better part of a decade, given this was the same company that claimed net neutrality would kill all telecom investment dead in the water.

While this may simply be the campaign closing down in the wake of its victory, this removes all clear record of speeches, editorials, statistics, and information the Leave campaign used on the run up to the referendum on membership of the European Union on June 23.

The content is still there, but links to information have been removed and the landing page is nothing more than a static image. Visitors looking for promises that may be broken in the future (like rerouting of EU fees to the NHS) will have to know the page's URL in order to access it. Given comments made by those involved with the dubious promises and dubious math, the quasi-wipe of the site's content may not just be Vote Leave's idea of a victory lap.

Senior Leave politicians such as Iain Duncan Smith have, in the days since the referendum, denied the money was promised to the NHS, despite other figures in the campaign saying "the Government should use some of the billions saved from leaving the EU to give at least a £100 million per week cash transfusion to the NHS".

The movement spent plenty of its own money talking about all the money the UK was handing over to the EU, rather than spending on its own citizens. Tracing backwards from its still-live YouTube account, one can still access its £50 million giveaway -- supposedly the amount turned over every day to the EU. This number was referred to by the UK Statistics Authority as "potentially misleading," due to the fact that Vote Leave based it on gross contributions without factoring in rebates received from the EU or any flow of offsetting income resulting from trade agreements.

In addition, other claims made during the Brexit campaign -- mostly related to stemming the flow of immigrants into the UK and preventing Turkey and handful of other nations from joining the EU -- have proven to be just as false. The original narrative of cutting back the flow of immigrants to the UK by "tens of thousands" now appears to have been replaced with a more hesitant assertion that not a whole lot will change. As for concerns about Turkey joining the EU and bringing with it thousands of jihadists from neighboring nations, the best guess is that the nation's possible inclusion is still several years -- if not several decades off. (UK Prime Minister David Cameron suggested the year 3000 as a good estimate based on current progress. Turkey has been moving towards this since 1963 and hasn't budged the needle much over the past 50 years.)

If Vote Leave is truly trying to bury its misleading math and promises it can't keep, it made its first mistake by publishing them to the web where things tend to live forever.

from the well,-this-is-awkward dept

Over the weekend, the internet blew up over the story that Paramount and CBS were going to drop their silly lawsuit over a professional looking Star Trek fan film. The news was "broken" by the producer of the next official Star Trek film, JJ Abrams, sitting alongside the director of that film, Justin Lin, at a Star Trek fan event. Lin had previously expressed support for the fan film on Twitter, and Abrams claimed that Lin urged Paramount to settle, and that "within a few weeks" there would be an announcement that the case had been settled.

Of course, between now and "within a few weeks," the case is still going on... and the folks behind the fan film, called Axanar, had to file their reply to the amended complaint. And they have. And, as per usual with these things, it goes through and rebuts various claims and then tosses in a bunch of counterclaims. Normally we'd go through and analyze the more interesting/important claims, but given that there's still a pretty good chance the whole case is going away shortly, we'll skip all that and jump to the part where Axanar's lawyers point to the JJ Abrams/Justin Lin statements and basically throw their hands in the air and say "we don't know what to do about this." After highlighting both of their comments, as well as the quote from Paramount "confirming" the settlement talks, the filing notes:

Nevertheless, despite these public comments, the present action remains pending, and Defendants are currently left with uncertainty as to how Axanar may proceed with its film to fulfill the wishes of thousands of fans who have contributed.

Given that pretty much everyone has admitted that there are settlement talks that are far along, it seems like the court should put the case on hold to see how those pan out. It's fairly common to see courts give parties extra time to settle such disputes out of court, and here's a case where that extra time clearly makes a lot of sense.

It still seems likely that the case will settle soon. I've seen some (fairly ignorant) commentary online arguing that because Axanar has filed counterclaims, the case must now move forward, but that's wrong. People are confusing the fact that the parties can settle the case outside of court with the issue of whether or not Paramount can just drop the case. From the statements everyone made, it's quite clear that they were discussing settlements, not Paramount universally backing away. A Star Trek "rumors" site claims that people at CBS are upset about the counterclaims and may continue the case even if Paramount settles (remember, Paramount and CBS co-own the various Star Trek IP). That report also claims that the two companies want the settlement to include the Axanar project being shut down -- which would seem to contradict the claims from Abrams.

While anything is possible, and the revealing of the settlement before it was actually agreed to could make things a bit messier, I find the claims about this difficult to believe. Axanar had to file its response because the case is still going and it was due. And they filed a strong response with counterclaims, because they have to do that, in case the settlement talks do fall apart for whatever reason. They can't go back to the judge and say "Hey, we filed a weak response because we thought we were all chummy now." That's not how it works. And, of course, the lawyers on the other side know this as well. The idea that the high priced lawyers at Paramount and CBS were somehow offended by this seems like a stretch. I may not agree with their views on copyright law, but I'd doubt they're so thin-skinned that some expected counterclaims will suddenly stop them from wanting to settle. Frankly, all the talk about how the counterclaims have sunk the settlement seem like wishful thinking from a group of folks who just hate the idea of Axanar.

from the rinse,-wash-repeat dept

Verizon's modus operandi has been fairly well established by now: convince state or local leaders to dole out millions in tax breaks and subsidies -- in exchange for fiber that's either only partially delivered, or not delivered at all. Given this story has repeated itself in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York City and countless other locations, there's now a parade of communities asking somebody, anybody, to actually hold Verizon's feet to the fire. Given Verizon's political power (especially on the state level) those calls go unheeded, with Verizon lawyers consistently able to wiggle around attempts to hold the telco to account.

In Pennsylvania, the story is much the same as elsewhere. Verizon was able to convince state leaders in the '90s to dole out billions in handouts for state-wide symmetrical 45 Mbps fiber broadband. But a decade later when people finally noticed fiber was nowhere to be found, Verizon managed to convince state leaders to effectively forget about the obligation entirely. Fast forward another decade and, after striking a 2009 franchise deal with the city of Philadelphia (again promising full city deployment of its FiOS fiber broadband service) you'll be shocked to discover what happened:

"Philadelphia government officials are investigating whether Verizon has met an obligation to bring FiOS service to all residents of the city. Verizon obtained a cable franchise agreement from the city in February 2009, and the deadline to wire up all of Philadelphia passed on February 26 of this year...Philadelphia seems skeptical about whether Verizon actually met its obligation, but it is still looking for proof. The city set up a webpage asking residents to fill out a form to "tell us whether you have tried to order Verizon service but have been told by the company that service is not yet available in your neighborhood."

Traditionally, ISPs can get away with this not only because they effectively own state legislatures, but because nobody in any part of government actually bothers to audit company deployment promises. What passes as an audit generally involves the ISP submitting its own claims that regulators fail to fact check. That's why Philadelphia leaders are being forced to crowdsource whether or not Verizon met its promises. Meanwhile, Verizon tells Philly city council leaders that they're unable to offer statistics right now on their FiOS deployment because, uh, unions:

"Philadelphia should learn from New York's experience, Philadelphia City Council member Bobby Henon said during a hearing two weeks ago. “We do not want this to happen in Philadelphia,” Henon said, according to an article published by Technical.ly Philly. Henon wanted good data, but Verizon said it couldn't provide it yet because of the ongoing Verizon workers' strike. Verizon also said, “Any claims made at the hearing that we haven’t completed our obligations of our franchise agreement are untrue," according to the article."

At this point there's plenty of blame to go around for the fact that history just keeps repeating itself without getting fixed. For one thing, just like in New York City, city leaders keep signing sweetheart deals with endless loopholes designed by Verizon lawyers, then acting shocked when Verizon actually uses those loopholes. For example, several city agreements let Verizon simply pass a set total of homes with fiber (anywhere up to several blocks away), instead of technically "serving" them. Other contracts contain language letting Verizon dodge or buy their way out of deployment obligations if certain TV uptake metrics aren't met.

These are clauses cities have been warned repeatedly about but choose to ignore. Bad deals are struck behind closed doors by one administration, with subsequent city leaders left holding the bag. By that point Verizon can successfully argue that they technically met the terms of such deals, because the terms of such deals were designed to be malleable. Granted that doesn't excuse Verizon's proclivity for ripping off taxpayers on an industrial scale, but this dance of dysfunction wouldn't be quite so embarrassingly uncoordinated if cities would stop signing deals that promise the moon, but deliver stinky cheese.

from the toxic-trade-deal dept

As far as trade agreements are concerned, the recent focus here on Techdirt and elsewhere has been on TPP as it finally achieved some kind of agreement -- what kind, we still don't know, despite promises that the text would be released as soon as it was finished. But during this time, TPP's sibling, TAFTA/TTIP, has been grinding away slowly in the background. It's already well behind schedule -- there were rather ridiculous initial plans to get it finished by the end of last year -- and there's now evidence of growing panic among the negotiators that they won't even get it finished by the end of President Obama's second term, which would pose huge problems in terms of ratification.

One sign of that panic is that the original ambitions to include just about everything are being jettisoned, as it becomes clear that in some sectors -- cosmetics, for example -- the US and EU regulatory approaches are just too different to reconcile. Another indicator is an important leaked document obtained by the Guardian last week. It's the latest (29 September) draft proposal for the chapter on sustainable development. What emerges from every page of the document, embedded below, is that the European Commission is now so desperate for a deal -- any deal -- that it has gone back on just about every promise it made (pdf) to protect the environment and ensure that TTIP promoted sustainable development. Three environmental groups -- the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth Europe and PowerShift -- have taken advantage of this leak to offer an analysis of the European Commission's real intent in the environmental field. They see four key problems:

The leaked text fails to provide any adequate defense for environment-related policies likely to be undermined by TTIP. For example, nothing in the text would prevent foreign corporations from launching challenges against climate or other environmental policies adopted on either side of the Atlantic in unaccountable trade tribunals.

The environmental provisions are vaguely worded, creating loopholes that would allow governments to continue environmentally harmful practices. The chapter lacks any obligation to ratify multilateral agreements that would bolster environmental protection and includes a set of vague goals with respect to biological diversity, illegal wildlife trade, and chemicals.

The leaked text includes several provisions that the European Commission may claim as "safeguards," such as a recognition of the "right of each Party determine its sustainable development policies and priorities" but none would effectively shield environmental policies from being challenged by rules in TTIP.

There is no enforcement mechanism for any of the provisions mentioned in the text. Even if one were included, it would still be weaker than the enforcement mechanism provided for foreign investors either through the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism or the renamed investment court system.

The environmental groups have produced a detailed five-page document (pdf) that goes through each of these points in turn, and it's well-worth reading. But it's striking that the central problem is Techdirt's old friend, corporate sovereignty, aka investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS):

Nothing in the text would prevent foreign corporations, on either side of the Atlantic, from challenging climate or other environmental policies via an "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS) mechanism or via the European Commission's proposed "Investment Court System." Both enable foreign investors to challenge environmental policies before a tribunal that would sit outside any domestic legal system and be able to order governments to compensate companies for the alleged costs of an environmental policy. While the Commission claims that its new investment "reforms" would protect the right to regulate, States could still be "sued" if foreign investors considered that a policy change violated the broad, special rights that the Commission’s "reformed" investment proposal would give them.

In other words, at the heart of the European Commission's philosophy is the implicit acceptance that investors' rights take precedence over the public's rights -- in this case, those concerning the environment. Everything in the leaked sustainable chapter is couched in terms of aspirations -- the US and EU are encouraged to do the right thing as far as sustainable development is concerned, but there are few, if any, obligations or enforcement mechanisms. When it comes to protecting investors, on the other hand, everything is compulsory, backed up by supranational tribunals that can impose arbitrarily large fines, payable by the public. Although it is true that governments are given the "right" to legislate as they wish when it comes to the environment, investors are given the "right" to sue those governments black and blue if they attempt to do so.

Nor is this mere theory. Research carried out last year by Friends of the Earth Europe shows that of the 127 known ISDS cases that have been brought against 20 EU member states since 1994, fully 60% concern environment-related legislation. In other words, if the European Commission's proposals or something like them became part of the final TTIP agreement, it would almost guarantee a torrent of litigation aimed at blocking or neutering environmental legislation on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is an important leak because it reveals, once more, that a central problem of TAFTA/TTIP is the corporate sovereignty that is inherent in ISDS -- the fact that companies are allowed to place the preservation of their future profits above any other consideration, such as the environment, health and safety or social goals. The EU's sustainability chapter -- an area that is widely recognized as increasingly important in a world where lack of sustainability poses all kinds of problems -- is framed entirely in outdated, 20th-century terms: boosting trade and maximizing profits are the only metrics that matter. The European Commission's willing embrace of that approach confirms both its contempt for the 500 million Europeans it supposedly serves, and the fact that, far from protecting the environment, TAFTA/TTIP is shaping up to be a very toxic trade deal.

from the semantic-ninja dept

We've been covering how Verizon has swindled a long line of states and cities into giving the company all manner of subsidies and tax breaks in exchange for uniform fiber deployment that never happens (or only partially happens). While fourteen Mayors recently wrote Verizon to complain about its dubious behavior, New York City has been the most vocal critic of late, after a June audit showed that Verizon completely failed to live up to a 2008 franchise agreement with the city promising 100% FiOS coverage to all five city boroughs by 2014. Verizon accomplished about half of that.

New York City held a hearing last week intended to hold Verizon accountable, but ran face first into a telco well-versed in semantic dodgeball. You see, by refusing to define the word "passed" in its agreements, Verizon can get away with claiming it serves a house with fiber -- provided fiber gets somewhere, vaguely close to its intended target. As it has done countless times before, Verizon leaned on this ambiguousness when trying to defend the company's behavior to city officials:

Verizon reps Leecia Eve and Kevin Service stated at the hearing that Verizon has unquestionably met its promise to "pass" all households in the five-borough area, which essentially means extending the fiber so that a building could theoretically then be connected to the network. As one councilmember pointed out, that's like installing water pipes but not hooking them up to individual apartments: the water's flowing on by, but no one can actually drink it.

"We consider it to be passed if we're within the realm of substantial fiber placement," Service said when pressed on how the term is actually defined. "I'm not a lawyer, but here's what I would say: we're passed if, when we get the request for service and have the necessary rights of way, what we have left to do does not create a delay in bringing service to that customer. Under that Kevin Service Definition, we've passed every household."

In other words, Verizon claims that all of these houses it failed to reach actually have fiber if you squint your eyes and look at it just the right way. Understandably, customers somewhere "within the realm of substantial fiber placement" probably aren't impressed by Verizon's explanation, even though the spokesman goes the extra mile and tries to bizarrely name his bullshit definition after himself. In contrast, however, New York City's full audit (pdf) found that there were 42,000 outstanding requests for FiOS installation, 75% of which were outstanding for more than a year. For many of them, the fiber "passes" their homes -- sometimes up to a mile away.

While the city now claims it's exploring its legal options, those options are likely to be limited. The previous city administration signed off on this deal after closed door negotiations, not only ignoring calls for transparency and public input at the time, but thirty years of precedent when it comes to Verizon's failure to hold up its end of the bargain.